5 Times Someone Mourns Daredevil
by RebelzHeart
Summary: And 1 time someone mourns Matt Murdock. Defenders-verse.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning:** Swearing.

* * *

She'd like to drink herself into oblivion.

To pick up whiskey and drink and drink and drink until there's nothing left to drink, then she'll pick up her jacket and head over to the sleaziest bar she can find. Or, at least, the cheapest.

She downs one bottle. Then two. The phone rings. She ignores it.

Jessica downs a bit more, then starts to cry, and wonders when the fuck she became so attached.

The phone rings a bit more, and she pulls it off to let it hang off the desk, tapping against the wood as it swings like a pendulum.

The knocks come a few seconds later, impatient and quick, then before she can shout something like _fuck off_ , Trish bursts in, Malcolm in tow. "Jessica?" Trish stares at the empty bottles on her desk, features twisting in horror before she groans, "Oh, _Jess_..."

"Fuck off," Jessica mumbles, but she's still crying so the effect is kind of ruined.

Malcolm moves over to take away her bottles, ignoring Jessica's protests as he starts to pour everything down the drain, muttering under his breath, "I should have done this ages ago," as Trish moves over to pull Jessica into a sort of hug type situation, which is awkward and weird and sort of nice, though she'd never admit it.

"Jess, how are you..." Trish stares at the empty bottles and sort of sighs, like, _right, stupid question_ , and then she smooths Jessica's hair from her face and cups her cheek as she asked softly, "You know that you can come to us, right?"

"Of course she doesn't." Malcolm smashes one of the bottles into Jessica's trash can and glares at it. "She never seems to understand that there are people who are here for her. That's what defines Jessica, being lonely." He kicks her trash can, before dropping down into a crouch next to her and sighing, "Can we change that?"

Trish stares at Malcolm, like she wants to chide him but can't find a lie in his words, and she sighs, "Of course we will," voice firm and sure and stubborn but also tired and weary and Jessica knows that it's her fault for being such a mess.

No. Fuck this. She knows she's a mess, and they know that she's a mess, but she doesn't want them to be here when she's crying like this.

"Fuck off," She repeats, but her voice cracks again in the middle, and the next thing Jessica knows, Trish is gently pulling the whiskey from her hands as she wraps an arm around Jessica's shoulders and presses her forehead against Jessica's shoulder.

"Do you want us to?" She asks, gentle and serious and harsh and so _Trish_ , all at the same time.

Jessica wants to scream. To throw something and to shout and to throw Trish and Malcolm away and to run to the edge of the roof and sit there and think about how easy it would be to fall but never be dumb enough to do it.

Instead she turns her head, smells Trish's hair with her fancy shampoo and conditioners, and admits roughly, voice gaining back a bit of her harsh edge as she grounds out a tight, "I don't know."

Trish runs her fingers through Jessica's hair, soft and gentle and slow. "We'll figure it out, okay?" She asks quietly.

"I did figure it out," Jessica's laugh is just a tad hysterical, "Until you poured my solution down the drain. Literally."

"It was for your own good, Jessica." Malcolm says. Good, sweet, Malcolm, who's honestly too good to be with someone as dark and screwed up as Jessica. "You're going to get over this, I swear."

Jessica makes a half sobbing sound in Trish's hair, too drunk to really keep her dignity properly. "Since when do we get over anything?"

She sees Malcolm run his fingers over his wrists, where he used to inject his drugs, and she thinks, _no, this isn't fair_.

"You're doing fantastic with getting over it." She sounds so lame, so dumb, but she wants him to get that it's _her_ that's the mess, not him, but instead her next words come out wistful instead of comforting, "I wish I could be as good as you."

Malcolm smiles bitterly at her, "I get hurt more this way."

Jessica cries into Trish's shoulder and says, "He was as good as you. He just wanted to help. He loved her even though she tried to kill him, the idiot."

Trish pats her back and murmurs something into her ear, but Jessica is too drunk and sad and broken to care.

 _My greatest weakness,_ she thinks as she falls asleep with Trish's hand running through her hair and Malcolm's soft, worried voice going in one ear and out the next, _is that I gave a damn._

She wishes she hadn't cared about the stupid guy in his dumb suit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning:** Swearing.

* * *

Karen cries.

Cries for a long time, drinking herself under the table in a bar, over her newspapers at home, and huddled in Matt's apartment as she and Foggy attempt to clean it out but just end up crying together on the couch.

She drinks a lot, too, during this time, and occasionally she'll see Jessica Jones, who will raise her own glass and greet her with a bitter smile.

Sometimes, if she's feeling up to the company, she'll slide in next to Jessica and talk about how she's being stupid. Jessica will agree, tell Karen she's an idiot, and then continue that everyone has emotions and that it's "healthy or some shit like that that you're expressing it, or at least that's what the fucking therapists say". She'll also add that she "thinks it's shit, but then again, I'm not exactly a the pinnacle of mental health".

Karen will make a half laugh, half sobbing sound, and agree, "Well, I'm not either."

Jessica will laugh bitterly and answer, "At least you're better than me."

Karen can't help but agree with that, and they'd continue drinking, mostly in silence, or sometimes just talking about stupid things.

She cries, mostly, for the friend she lost and the life that he could have won.

She cries about the fact that he could never have been just Matt Murdock, that Daredevil was also a part of him and she mourned how stupid it was to have ever thought otherwise.

Then, a few nights later, she's cried dry, so she goes back to the office and asks the chief for any and all articles on Daredevil, before pouring over them over long nights with nothing but a mug of beer to keep her company.

Foggy says she's going crazy.

The other journalists say she's weird.

Jessica just shoots her a look that's almost sympathetic.

Trish, when she comes to collect Jessica, gives Karen the same look as she squeezes her shoulder and says softly, "The first time... when she escaped that first time, I guess... Jessica did the same with Kilgrave. Poured over articles and searched him up everywhere."

Strangely enough, that might be the most comforting thing that Karen's heard.

But the worst part is, she thinks bitterly to herself, Kilgrave came back.

Kilgrave, the villain, returned.

And Matt, the hero, is gone.

He's helped crime rates, she knows that.

She has heard so many testimonies of people being saved by Daredevil.

She's heard of rape victims saved and being told about the nearest help clinic.

She's heard of children being saved and sent to Officer Brett.

She's heard so much.

But she's also been saved by Daredevil, been saved by Matt, that first time, when she was accused of murder and nobody but the lawyer with his walking stick believed her, when she thought all was lost and he came and promised her that Nelson and Murdock would help her.

Karen mourns her friend. She mourns Matt, with his crooked smile and his taste for coffee and the way that he tilts his head to the side ever so slightly.

But she also mourns the hero of the city, with all his scars and bruises and him sobbing as he tells her that he's sorry, the way that his voice hardens as he tells her, regretful but honest, that he _has_ to save people. She mourns the Daredevil of Claire's stories, stiffly sitting through the pain, she mourns the one that kept his identity a secret and tore himself in two so that he could protect everyone, the people he knew and the people he didn't.

She mourns, and mourns, and eventually, when her tears have dried and she's been drunk a bit too often ( _far_ too often), she collects the articles and police records and she types up an article about Daredevil.

It's only right, after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** Admission time? I adore Jessica.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny doesn't cry. He doesn't take the time to mourn. He doesn't take the time to talk about how great a guy Matt Murdock was.

Instead he punches the air, numb and tired and all he can do is think about how he's failed _again_.

How, yet again, someone's died, and it was his fault.

Colleen watches him quietly before she stands up, sword in hand as she easily catches his fist and flips him onto his back. "You're getting rash," She tells him, soft and sweet and extremely terrifying. (Ah, how he loves her.) "You're letting your emotions compromise your fighting skills. Never..." She pulls out her sword and strikes it in one fluid, beautiful motion, "Let..." She twists and turns, as graceful as a bird, "Emotions get in the way of your skills." She ducks and lunges, one smooth movement tipping her sword against a little space right above his collarbone.

Then she straightens, moving her ponytail with a shake of her head as she slides her sword back into it's scabbard and tips her head down at him, cocking an eyebrow.

"Got it?"

He nods, but his eyes are still trained on her sword, and irrationally, he can imagine the dojo's roof crumbling and can imagine the ceiling smashing down on Colleen, can imagine her body ground to dust so fine that they can't even find a single trace of it.

Something flickers in her eyes... disappointment, he thinks for a moment, before he remembers that this is Colleen, and she wouldn't be disappointed in him for something like that, and when he looks again he can tell that she's emotionally compromised, too.

"Well," She huffs and sits down next to him, pressing a hand against her forehead as she says softly, "Guess I'm compromised, too, huh?"

And he can't quite answer, because he's started to cry and wait, _no_ , he can't deal with _feelings_ , but they're coming and it's very annoying but somehow it feels freeing all the same. "We all are," He answers quietly, closing his eyes and drawing forth the teachings of the monks of K'un Lun.

(He very pointedly doesn't think about their dead bodies, doesn't think of their faces washed with blood as they drone _you killed us_ in his nightmares.)

"It's not wrong to feel emotion," He says quietly, feeling his chi pulse in his body, worried and fearful but calmer than he's felt in a while. "But we must know the line between being aware, and being compromised."

Colleen pulls her knees up to her chest and drops her chin to her knees, katana still in her hand as she answers quietly, "I said maybe a word to him. That's it. His death doesn't affect me."

"That's a lie," Danny says quietly, a bitter laugh pouring out of his lips, "Though I could try to say the same."

"We're both just liars, aren't we," Colleen sobs quietly, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I hate his city. It's so dark and wrong and twisted. But he was so good. He still loved the city, despite how horrible it was. I don't want to have to be a hero like that."

"He asked us to." Danny answers quietly, pressing a hand against her head.

"He was a saint," Colleen snorts, "But I'm not a hero."

"You are," Danny frowns, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and sweat and the metal of her blade.

"Not like he was," Colleen closes her eyes, her lashes brushing against his skin. "And I didn't even know him. Not until we patrolled... until we saw the city and saved it and realized what it was like to save it night after night, hopeless and awful."

"Maybe not to him." Danny says.

"Maybe not," Colleen allows.

Then they stand back up and go back to sparring, no more words about Daredevil needed.

He was good, Danny knows. But in the end, he knows it's unhealthy to live in the past. _Stay in the present, with Colleen,_ he thinks.

And that, really, is all he needs to stay content.


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning:** Swearing.

* * *

Luke avoids people.

He doesn't mean to, he'll swear, but he does, nonetheless.

He can't look at Claire anymore without imagining a bullet hole in her forehead, can't look at Misty without glancing at her arm and thinking _a little closer to her chest_ , can't quite look at anybody right anymore.

Jessica's the one who puts a stop to it.

She swings by with something fruity on her breath and a beer in hand, slams it down on the desk and sneers, "You girlfriend says you've been avoiding her."

The words aren't hostile, Luke almost wishes they were, but concern heavily weighs down Jessica's words, and from the way her brow furrows and she tilts her head, asking him without shoving him up a wall.

"I'm not," Luke lies, and Jessica scoffs. She looks like she wants to take another swig of her beer, but he glances at the little pink ribbon against her wrist and thinks _ah._ Trish must have gotten to her.

"You suck at lying," She snorts, rolling her eyes, and mutters under her breath, "You're even worse at keeping secrets than I am at staying sober."

Luke wants to lash out at her. To scream his lungs out until his voice is hoarse and he can't scream anymore, he wants to yell that he's _trying_ , that he just _can't_ , that he wants to be with Claire but every time he sees her, he can see the way her eyes flicker, wondering if he'll die like Daredevil did, wants to scream that he does the same, that he looks at her and thinks that he, selfishly, wants to stay with her even though he wants to be a hero, too.

He wants to say so much and yet he knows that he can say nothing at all.

"He's _dead_ ," Luke says, and it's not his first death, it's definitely not, he _knows_ that, but it shakes him all the same, imagining Jessica teasing Daredevil about how his suit is kinky, imagining the way that Luke thought they'd just finish off the Hand and each go their own way, imagining that Luke would never see him again, but just not _this way_. "I thought I wouldn't care if he died. If he just helped us win the fight, we could go our separate ways and I wouldn't care."

"Thinks change when people die," Jessica answers bitterly, eyeing the beer as she shoves her hands in her pockets. He can hear the knowing in her voice, the experience and the way she despises knowing that. "You think you don't care, then they're stabbed on your bed and their blood's on your carpet and..." Her breath hitches. "If I had never seen his face again, I wouldn't have thought about it. Then he died, and _that's_ only when I started giving any..."

She swears a bit, but Luke can't quite find it in himself to mind.

"I'm sorry," he says, the only appropriate thing he can really think to say. He thinks about pretty words coming out of his mouth, thinks about Jessica telling him that she loved him, thinks about her shooting him in the head and thinks about the way she looks at Trish and how selfish it is that he almost wished that she could look at him like that.

"Don't be," Jessica snorts, like she thinks he's ridiculous.

Luke immediately feels like a chided child.

"The beer's for you," Jessica throws up a hand and raises her eyebrows at Luke. "See Claire, okay? She's been coming to pour her shit on me and I'd rather she pour her shit on you, instead."

Luke's lips twitch at that, because he knows it's not true, knows that while Jessica tries to act like it's a pain, she appreciates them coming to talk it out with her because she'd never do that and she knows that she's screwed up.

(Except now, she has Trish, doesn't she? And Malcolm, too. Not Luke, though. Not yet.)

"Alright," Luke says, instead of what he's thinking. "I'll see Claire."

"You better," Jessica agrees, bobbing her head into a nod. "Don't you, like, _live_ together? That's gotta be so..." She wrinkles her nose, and makes a sound of disgust. "Ugh. You're even worse at this whole relationship thing than _I_ am."

Luke laughs at that. "Is it possible to be worse than you?" He asks, amused.

Jessica makes a face at him. "See Claire," She puts two fingers to her forehead and makes a mocking salute. "Sob into her shoulder or something. She'd like that shit. She's all like 'Luke needs to express his feelings before he self destructs'."

"Funny," Luke raises an eyebrow, "She says that about you, too."

Jessica gives him the middle finger, and Luke just laughs even harder as she storms off, beer on his desk and hands in her pockets.

And when he's done laughing, he pulls out his phone, and dials for Claire.


	5. Chapter 5

She recalls finding him in a dumpster.

She recalls groaning, thousands of times, _all I want is a normal life_.

Except, she supposes she doesn't, because here she is, crying as she reads Karen's article on Daredevil and how he was a true hero to their city.

It's not fair, Claire thinks, that someone so good is dead.

She thinks of that little quote they used to read as children, _what flowers do you pick? The prettiest ones_ , thinks about how it's true, but this particular flower was reckless and stupid and _real_.

She never thought she'd miss this insanity. This messed up, wacky thing that was supposed to be her life.

"I didn't want him to be Daredevil," Karen cries over a few glasses of beer. They're in her apartment, sitting on the couch as Karen wipes at red rimmed eyes. "I never wanted _Matt_ to be... to be that hero. I didn't want him to do this for this reason."

"But he would never have gone out any other way." Claire muses, and Karen cries a bit more, this time tinged with hysterical laughter.

"I'll drink to that," Karen says, and they do.

Eventually they're both total messes, plastered and loud and just crying even as Claire says, "Daredevil was a hero, but Matt was more than that."

"Yeah," Karen agrees, voice cracking in all the wrong places as she swipes an arm over her eyes (not that it does much good for her, since she just keeps crying more and more) as she continues, "I know that Daredevil did so much good. And I know that being... that being Daredevil was a part of Matt. A part of him. But I loved Matt so much more than Daredevil, you know?"

"Matt was _human_ ," Claire agrees, thinking of exasperated sighs and rolls of her eyes. "Daredevil was a symbol. You can't fall in love with a symbol, not further than hero worship."

Karen puts her glass down and stops drinking as she tips her head back and closes her eyes. "We're such messes," she laughs a bit, but Claire can hear the wistful longing in her voice, can hear the way she's still mourning, after all this time.

"We are," Claire agrees, and takes another gulp of her beer. It's dry and tasteless, but she'd rather not remember the mess that she's becoming when morning comes. She won't even mind the monster of a hangover, not really. "All thanks to Matt."

Karen snorts at that, "All thanks to our unhealthy coping strategies, you mean."

"Oh Christ..." Claire groans, and buries her face in her hands. "We're turning into Jessica."

"Jessica's getting better," Karen corrects her, wiping the tears off her cheeks. They finally stop coming and she sighs, "We're just getting worse."

Claire starts crying harder at that for some reason, and she answers in a small voice, "This is a one time thing."

"Maybe for you," Karen snorts, and Claire can see the way her brow furrows, the way her eyes sharpen, and feels her stomach drop.

Oh _no_.

Claire, in her own grief, has forgotten about taking care of her friends. She thinks of Foggy and Karen (no more Matt, never again Matt), waiting, staring at the door, then Karen covering her face and burying it in Foggy's shoulder, thinks of the way that Foggy's face breaks and he opens his mouth but no words come out as he stares at the door, hopefully and terrified.

"I'm sorry," Claire cries, but she's not sure what for anymore, for Karen's grief, or Foggy's, or the way that Claire has reached out but _hasn't_ , not really.

"I'm sorry, too," Karen says, and she wraps her arms around Claire into a hug. "Just promise me that we won't remember any of this in a morning."

A laugh bubbles out of Claire's lips, high pitched and hysterical and yet somehow honest. "Yeah," She agrees, wrapping her arms back around Karen, "God, this is embarrassing."

(But, Claire knows that crying next to each other is better than staying alone and pretending nothing's wrong.)

(But oh, when morning comes, she regrets it, because what a hangover.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Reply to soup(Guest):** Well, here's your answer. :)

* * *

Foggy has known Matt since college.

Foggy has known _Daredevil_ for a few months? Maybe? And he never had any love for him.

The way Foggy saw it, Daredevil was just another way for that idiot of a friend to get himself killed

(And it did, in the end. Foggy was right. He wishes he could feel smug about it. But how can he, when he knows that Matt's gone, along with the Devil?)

Matt said that the Murdock boys always had the Devil in them. That it was just waiting to be let out.

(But Foggy thinks, what was holding the Devil down? Surely, the good in Matt, the boy with the tousled hair and the crows feet on his eyes, was more important than any Devil could be, _better_ than any Devil could be.)

Matt said that he wanted to be normal.

(Foggy knows it's the truth, knows from the way that Matt drags his eyes from Foggy to that cursed case in the closet, knows from the way he runs his thumbs over bloody knuckles.)

Matt said he never missed his old life.

(Foggy knows this is a lie. Oh, he knows. It's what killed Matt, in the end. But he had wanted to pretend... wanted to act as though it were alright, just a little longer.)

He knows that there are many people that mourn Daredevil. Mourn the vigilante, the hero, the mask that saved them even when they didn't know they needed it.

Knows the other heroes, Jessica and Luke and Danny and Claire and all the others, knows they mourn the man who could win any battle, the man who cocked his head to the side when he was listening, mourned the Devil with that blood on his fists and that grimace on his lips.

Foggy thinks, maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's stupid, that he misses the other part of Matt.

Misses the man who makes dumb blind jokes and _milks_ his disability for all it's worth. (But it's not a disability, never was, and maybe Foggy was the blind one for not noticing that.)

Misses the man who's picky about food but will eat just about anything set on his plate, misses the man who refuses to drink milk but will eat a cheeseburger in two bites. Misses the man that went to bars with him and laughed at his lame jokes, misses...

 _Christ_ , Foggy misses Matt so much, and he can come up with a million reasons why but he thinks, he knows, he'll never understand why he misses that dumb goof.

Maybe it doesn't need to be reasoned. Doesn't need logic to validate it, to make it true.

All the same, Foggy mourns.

Maybe he should mourn the mask, the hero.

He mourns the face he knows, his friend, a hero, all the same, no mask required.


End file.
